Hermetic Magic

I attended my last Shakespeare seminar in the city over the weekend and was quite impressed with the final session and the class overall. The seminar dealt with magic in Shakespeare. One of my favorite aspects of this discussion was that it often delved into the reality of Shakespeare’s world, helping to fill out a detailed picture of what these Elizabethans and Jacobeans were all about. If I learned anything, I learned that a good understand of this (or at least some understanding of this) is key to a good understanding of Shakespeare.

One of the specific things we discussed along these lines was the influence of Hermetic magic and the hermetic worldview in Shakespeare’s day. Hermeticism is a belief system based on the ancient writings of Hermes Trismegistus (I know, great name, right?). Complex and overarching, it is a holistic, encompassing religious philosophy based (among other things) on the so-called three parts of the wisdom of the whole universe: Alchemy (the exploration of the spirituality of matter), Astrology (the movement and influence of the planets on the natural world), and Theurgy (divine magic). It is singularly monotheistic and presents a worldview where God is the ultimate reality, standing apart from the Universe, the main force who gave us, many eons ago, a singular theology that predates all other theologies. It is a protean religion.

One of the central aspects of Hermeticism deals with science, namely, the idea that humanity can connect to, control, and influence nature through scientific experiment and “magic” (I put magic in quotes here because it’s important to differentiate and define it. It means the occult in this context, not a simple card trick or a Disney movie. Magic as a real thing.). The Hermetic worldview takes a step towards science then, claiming a connection to the unnatural world through, natural, scientific means.

So, what does this have to do with Shakespeare? Although still a complete novice in this stuff, these ideas do seem central to Shakespeare, serving as the backdrop for so many of the actions and themes in his plays. From Prospero to the Weird Sisters, from Hamlet’s ghostly father to the living statue of Hermione, this relationship between (and access to) the natural/unnatural world is woven intricately throughout so many of his works, a science-meets-religion aspect that gets at the divine through concrete, scientific efforts, through natural means, through things like specific ingredients used in a witches’ brew (Macbeth) or an all-powerful magic book (The Tempest). This relationship, this hermetical ying/yang, would have not only been understood by his audience, but accepted, believed, and even looked for. So it’s not all that strange, this strange world of the Bard, when you look at it through this lens. It’s rather natural actually.

Kill Shakespeare

A colleague recently recommended the graphic novel Kill Shakespeare. It was a great recommendation. Having limited familiarity with this genre (graphic novel), I was pleasantly surprised by all of the action, artistry, and drama that this medium affords. The story is simple. Many of the villains of Shakespeare’s plays (Richard III, Iago, and Lady MacBeth, for example) have banded together to kill the Bard, or more accurately, steal his magic quill and thus steal his power, which is the ability to control the world. They are opposed by the “good” characters (Hamlet, Falstaff, Othello, and Juliet, among others), who have allied to oppose them. The story unfolds in truly great comic book fashion, with lots of honor, blood, battles, and glory, with a fair bit of homage paid back to the Bard (in the form of references, quotes, specific plot points, etc.). These graphic novelists pull it off, avoiding the “cheese” factor (for example, tired Shakespeare quotes all over the place) as well at the ivory tower factor (for example, brainy, obscurely academic Shakespearean references all over the place). It works.

One thing I loved so much about it was the way these characters were made into such total badasses. In this graphic novel, Juliet is a complete force of nature. Othello? Forget about it. Complete. Ass-kicking. Warrior. This is cool, and does not debase what Shakespeare is about (which is a criticism I have heard). Why not show these characters in all their strength and potency, which is what they are. Why not take that ball and run with it, especially when you can do it such justice in comic book form? Such larger-than-life casting, perfect for a comic and perfect for the Bard. Shakespeare would have loved it I’m sure.

(36) The Tempest

The Tempest is a pretty darn good play, but you probably knew that already. It begins with a really cool shipwreck and then moves on to a vengeful, all-powerful wizard and his sweet, innocent daughter. Next comes all sorts of magic and mayhem, followed by…you guessed it, a wedding, right at the end (well, really an engagement, not an actual wedding, but close enough). There are some great characters throughout this one (Prospero, Miranda, Ariel, and Caliban, for starters) and it just generally moves along about as well as anything I have yet read. The final epilogue, spoken by Prospero, is one of my favorites in any of the plays, reminding me of Puck’s excellent final soliloquy in Midsummer. Just some really great lines there.

Speaking of epilogues, there’s something interesting going on with this one. Legend has it that The Tempest was the last play Shakespeare wrote, suggesting that this epilogue is thus his final words, his farewell to the theater, his retirement and swansong. In it, “Prosperospeare” asks to be released from the stage by the audience, through their applause, so that he can move on (“But release me from my bands, With the help of your good hands”). It certainly seems like something someone who is retiring would say (side note: some productions go so far as to have these lines spoken not by Prospero but rather by an actor dressed as Shakespeare, coming out as a surprise, to fully drive home the Prospero-as-Shakespeare point).

So, is this a retirement speech to us from old Bill, a tearful sendoff to his admiring friends? Seems like it, right? Not so fast. To assume that Shakespeare threw down his pen at this moment and marched off into some sort of literary sunset is just way too overly dramatic for me. In fact, many believe he still wrote (co-wrote actually, as a contributor) a number of additional plays after The Tempest. This idea then, this final parting, seems to be complete fallacy (but fun fallacy). This is a clear case of us reading between the lines, of us hearing what we want to hear, of us making what we want out of his words, which we are free to do of course, because it’s all ours, not his, really, which is (if I have learned anything) exactly what the world of Shakespeare is all about.

So, speaking of endings, only two more plays to go and then finis (or exeunt) for me and this blog/project. The end (beginning?) is near.

(35) Cymbeline

I finished reading this play last week and was lucky enough to also catch a live performance in DC. I really liked both. I guess the main thing that struck me was how much recycled material seemed to exist in this one. So many of the same devices seen in previous plays reappear, for example, a really villainous lead character, a gender-switching disguise, an utterly innocent heroine, and a stormy transformative moment (there are more). As a result, this one came across as a bit of a retread. Is this a function of an uninspired Bard or, seasoned veteran as I am, am I just too used to him at this point (obviously, taken singly, this play would seem quite singular)? Or, is Shakespeare returning to his old stomping grounds in this late play (it was one of the last he wrote) because they are important to his art and work so well, on so many different levels? Probably.

Concerning the live performance, it was part of a two play tour I was again lucky enough to be able to do (I recently saw this one, and then saw Othello at the ASC). Both were excellent, but especially Cymbeline, where six multi-talented actors played all the parts, with an exceedingly great degree of skill. Once again, I am convinced of the obvious point that there is absolutely no substitute to seeing a live version if you really want to “get it.” You gotta see to believe.

I do have one really minor gripe about this Cymbeline production though, something that probably only bothered me, namely, that they removed my favorite lines. They are spoken right at the end by Cymbeline, when he jovially proclaims how great everything is (remember, this is a romance, not a tragedy):

Laud we the gods,
And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
From our blest altars.

Isn’t that great? Unfortunately, like I said, in the production I saw (unless I missed it…which is possible), they left these lines out. No big deal of course, but just something I noticed. This happened to me one time before, right at the very beginning of this project, when I went to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater and noticed the absence of one of my favorite lines (“No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, / nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”). I guess that’s how it goes from time to time. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that emendation happens all over the place with Shakespeare. It’s part of the game, a necessary part even, a part almost certain to disappoint someone at some point. Oh well. I guess the idea is to back up such choices with appropriate and well-considered reasoning.

Shakespeare References – A Record

I thought this could be fun as an extrapolation on my last post: a specific record of all the references to Shakespeare that I ran across in a typical day. So I picked yesterday. I probably missed a few but there were four confirmed sightings (okay, maybe three and a half, the first may be a bit of a reach). Check it out:

• 7:20am - Reading the Staunton, VA Visitor’s Guide:
  Advertisement for the “All’s Well” Massage Center. All’s Well…get the joke? It’s a “happy ending.” Or am I reaching?
• 11:14am - Listening to a Radio Podcast:
  Podcasters mentioned the movie Shakespeare in Love and that this movie was Joseph Fiennes “best role.”
• 5:11pm - Looking at an old picture of my Brother-in-Law’s beer can collection:
  Contains a beer can called “Falstaff.”
• 10:14pm - Watching the HBO Series Generation Kill:
  
  Sgt. Brad 'Iceman' Colbert quotes Julius Caesar (Act III.1):
  
  Sgt. Colbert: Once more into the great good night. Cry 'havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war.
  Cpl. Person: Man, when I get home I am gonna eat the f - - - out of my girlfriend's p - - - -.
  Evan 'Scribe' Wright: Is that Shakespeare?
  Lance Cpl. Trombley: Shakespeare wrote that? [Wright nods] About his girlfriend's p - - - -?

Funny how bawdy (implied and overt) these references are. Shakespeare would have approved. So at the risk of beating a dead horse dead, there it is. See what I mean? He's everywhere. Kind of a silly exercise, but hey, why not.

The Ubiquity of the Bard

One of my more interesting and even startling discoveries while working on this project was the realization that Shakespeare, in so many interesting and often surprising ways, wholly invades our everyday life, well…every day and in (almost?) every way. The size and scope of this ubiquity still baffles me, the way this one individual is institutionalized into our culture (world culture?) to a level surpassing anyone (anything?) else. It’s quite amazing actually, if you think about it (check out this excellent (although dated) New York Times article if you don’t believe me. It does a good job discussing this idea).

And for some reason I really love seeing the guy everywhere, like a literary uber-where’s waldo. It’s great, seeing the Bard’s pop up in some random advertisement during the ballgame or on a highway billboard, or hearing a friend say, almost word for word, a quote from one of the plays, without even knowing it. There’s something almost subversive in this heightened awareness, like being on the inside of an inside joke, and I can almost feel the Bard next to me, sort of jabbing my ribs with his elbow, pointing and laughing at some sign, picture, commercial, or whatever and saying quietly: Do you see that? Ha! (and yes, given what little we know about the guy, he would probably be more surprised at this than I, for sure).

So I love it, this omniscience. And trust me, I’m not crazy (at least not about this), it happens every day. The dude’s everywhere. The guy redefines ubiquity.

A Lecture

Of the few people that I have mentioned this project to (reading every play), a significant number of them have asked the same simple question: Why? At first, this question caught me off guard a bit. It’s just something you should do, right? A decent idea. Why not? This reason seemed deficient when I first used it, and for good reason…because it is. Nobody seemed to buy it, including myself, so I thought about it some more, and continue to do so. It’s a damn good question, so I think it deserves a damn good answer (or at least a damn good attempt at a damn good answer). At the risk of sounding like a pretentious bore here, I would like to write a little bit about where I am on this question then, this question of “why,” because it’s fun, because it seems worthwhile, and, well, because it’s my blog and I say so. So bear with me.

A Shakespeare lecture I recently attended has helped me to develop the following theory: reading Shakespeare confirms our humanity and, by doing so, brings us together and in turn elevates us to something greater. The Shakespeare canon contains the full range of human experience and can serve to affirm and strengthen our shared human condition. It is of us and in us, made for us and by us. It is US, we, the human, perfectly expressed, and thus inherently valuable as a roadmap to real meaning. This notion, if you think about it, is powerful, perhaps all-powerful, and really has legs if you get into it (again, bear with me).

Check this out: The lecture the other day partly focused on Shakespeare as a redemptive force. There is some energy these days behind this idea, with many examples of good people trying to use Shakespeare’s plays as therapy, as an uplifting experience, as a path to freedom from evil. For example, one could cast and direct a play at a troubled intercity school, or perhaps stage a play at a prison, using convicts as actors. Simply stated, the idea is that we can help someone be better through the words of the Bard.

I like this, and hope for its truth, but, interestingly, the lecture actually spent more time analyzing not how this can be done but rather what it means to put forth this idea in the first place. Why would this be true, Shakespeare as a redemptive force? How could this work? What are these plays actually doing that heals? Is the text itself redemptive? Or, is it what we bring to the text that makes it powerful (probably). So who is doing the work then? If a convicted murderer reads the passage from Hamlet where Claudio prays to God for forgiveness, what can that do for the murderer/actor? Can it help them? Why? Most interestingly, the idea that this is perhaps a misreading of the Bard was explored in the seminar (an idea I am still working out), with us readers imposing all sorts of meaning on the text so as to get to where we want (need?) to be. As such, are we then hijacking Shakespeare?

Sorry for all the questions (and sorry if this is trite, obvious, boring, or otherwise unbearable; like I said, it’s my party and I can do what I want to), but I like these ideas, especially since it dovetails nicely with something I have been turning over in my mind for a while now, namely, the assertion that literature is perhaps the greatest form of art because it helps us share our world, most notably our inner world, with greater force and fluency than any other form. This inner world (soul?) is us, our being, making a great bit of writing a form of “worship” perhaps (never have quotes been more useful around a word), an aid in transcendence from the physical to the spiritual. If indeed “we are islands to each other” (to quote a favorite artist of mine), bridging that gap is maybe then the most important and worthy goal of any artist, and books do it best. Again, simply put, when we link together, really link together, the world is a better place. Shakespeare facilitates this as well (better?) than anyone or anything, helping to reveal this inner world in all it glorious facets and helping to close the gap of singular self-consciousness. So that’s why I’m reading the guy (for those reasons, and for all the jokes of course). Seems like a good reason to me.

(There’s something else we touched on in the lecture that I found very interesting: the idea that there is something else going on here besides simply the words, namely, that there is a rhythm to the text, an iambic pentameter, a music in these lines, and that is perhaps moving us as much as anything. When you pull the car over and lift up the hood, is the poetry the engine, is that doing the work? One of my favorite writers once said (I’m paraphrasing big time here) that, although a firm and deeply convinced humanist/atheist, the only times he ever questioned this was when he heard some really great music. Indeed. Notice how I said earlier that literature is perhaps the greatest form of art? Is it music? Or, is it all one and the same, as we see in Shakespeare, and ourselves)?